Creation (39 page)

“I shall, Lord Prince.”

“Tell him”—Ajatashatru was now whispering in my ear; his breath smelled of curry—“tell him, as delicately as possible, that our police have learned that there will be an attempt on his life. Very, very soon. You understand—and he will understand—that we cannot openly warn him. It would be embarrassing for us to admit that we have agents in Koshala. But you are neutral. You are from outside. You can tell him to be on his guard.”

“But who are the conspirators?” Then I allowed myself a courtier’s inspiration. “The federation of republics?”

Ajatashatru was obviously grateful for a suggestion that had not, for the moment, occurred to him. “Yes! They want Koshala in ruins, which it almost is, anyway. That is why they are working closely, secretly and, oh, so treacherously with the chief conspirator who is”—soundlessly, Ajatashatru mouthed the words—“Virudhaka, the son of the king.”

I don’t know why I was shocked. After all, the man for whom I was named killed his father-in-law. But a father-in-law is not a father and the Aryan belief in the father’s sacredness is an essential part of their code. Did I believe Ajatashatru? I have long since forgotten. But I suspect that I did not. He had a tendency to speak the way a bird sings; he trilled, chattered, made the air vibrate with meaningless sound.

At noon the next day Varshakara accompanied me as far as the north gate of Rajagriha. The first part of the caravan had left before dawn and nearly two miles now separated the head of the caravan from its tail. I was to travel at the center, accompanied by all but a handful of the embassy. I was still not certain whether or not I would return with the caravan to Persia. I had been cut off from the real world for more than two years, during which no message had ever got through to me from Susa. I was feeling isolated, to say the least.

“We regard Pasenadi as a good ally.” Varshakara spat a wad of crimson betel juice at a pariah dog, staining the creature’s ear.

To the north, as far as the eye could see, a thousand iron-filled bullock-drawn carts moved slowly through a cloud of yellow dust. The smelted iron was of unusually good quality, thanks to a member of my embassy who was able to teach the Magadhans how to smelt iron in the Persian way.

“Because a weak ally is a good ally?” To joke with Varshakara was rather like poking a stick at a tiger in a flimsy cage.

“Sometimes. Sometimes not. But we certainly prefer the old man to his son.”

Since the Indian mob at whose center we stood was so loud, there was not much danger of our being overheard.

“Is it true?” I asked.

Varshakara nodded. “Before the end of the rainy season, there will be a new king.”

“I hope that I’m not there.”

“I hope that you can prevent it.”

“How?”

“You must warn the old man. I’m sure that Persia doesn’t want a strong king in Koshala any more than we do.”

“How can there be a strong king if the Buddhists control the country?”

Varshakara looked surprised. “But they don’t. And if they did, what difference would it make?”

Obviously, Varshakara had forgotten his speech to me on the danger Buddhists and Jains present to the established order. Since I thought bun mad, I spoke very carefully. “It was my understanding that the monasteries are full of republicans and that they have set out deliberately to weaken Koshala—and Magadha, too.”

“Quite the contrary.” Varshakara briskly contradicted everything that he had told me on the road from Varanasi. “The Jains and the Buddhists are an enormous help to any king. No, it’s Pasenadi himself who is at fault. He is a holy man who thinks only of the next world ... or of no world, or whatever it is those people believe in. This may be admirable in a man but not in a king. The old fool should have abdicated long ago. Then we could have ... tamed the son.”

Although Varshakara’s analysis of Pasenadi’s character did not interest me—on principle I never believed a word that he said about political matters—I was intrigued to learn that he now appeared to approve of Buddhism, I asked him why.

Varshakara’s answer seemed candid. “Any religion that believes that this world is a kind of illness to be got rid of by prayer and by respecting all life and by not wanting earthly possessions is enormously helpful to a ruler. After all, if people don’t want material things, they won’t want what we’ve got. If they respect all life, they will never try to kill us or overthrow our government. Frankly, we do our best, through the secret police, to encourage the Jains and the Buddhists. Naturally, if we ever saw them as a threat ...”

“But their virtues are entirely negative. They won’t work. They are beggars. How can you make soldiers out of them?”

“We don’t try. Besides, those are just the monks. The majority of the Jains and the Buddhists simply honor Mahavira and the Buddha, and then they go on about their business like everyone else—with one difference. They cause us less trouble than everyone else.”

“Because they are republicans at heart?”

Varshakara laughed. “Even if they were, what could they do? Anyway, the world does not interest them, which is very nice for those of us who absolutely dote on the world as it is.”

My bullock cart was now at hand. Varshakara and I said farewell. Then Caraka and I shoved our way through the crowd to where my guards were waiting. Although they were dressed as Indians, they were armed as Persians.

I insisted that the cart be equipped with an awning and cushioned seats. To my surprise, I had been obeyed. Once Caraka and I were seated, the driver’s whip touched the flanks of the bullocks and, with a jolt, we began the two-hundred-and-twenty-mile journey to Shravasti.

Ambalika did not go with me because she was sick with the fever. Since there was a good possibility that she was also pregnant, we both agreed that it was dangerous for her to travel. “But you
will
come back, won’t you?” Ambalika looked her age, and most forlorn.

“Yes,” I said. “As soon as the rainy season is over.”

“Then you’ll be able to watch me give birth to your son.”

“I shall pray to the Wise Lord that I shall be home by then.” I embraced her.

“Next winter,” said Ambalika firmly, “the three of us will go up to Susa.”

THE CARAVAN CROSSED THE GANGES AT the river port of Pataligama where the ferrymen ate celebrated not only for their clumsiness but for the delight that they take in any sort of disaster. On our account, they had two occasions for high merriment, each involving the loss of a wagonload of iron on a day when the river was as flat and as smooth as a polished-metal mirror.

Because of the sun’s heat, we traveled by night and slept by day. We saw no thieves until we entered the forest just south of Vaishali. Here we were attacked by several hundred well-armed bandits who made a great deal of noise but did us no damage. This particular band is esteemed throughout India because no one may join who is not a legitimate son of a third-generation member of the thieves’ guild. Thieving is so profitable that this particular guild does not want an age-old business ruined by amateurs.

The Licchavi capital of Vaishali is also the capital of the union of republics, sometimes known as the Vajjian federation.

We were greeted by the governor of the city, who showed us the congress hall where delegates from the other republics meet. But since congress was not in session, the huge wooden hall was empty. We were also taken to the birthplace of Mahavira, an undistinguished suburban house which already has the unmistakable look of a shrine.

It took me a long time to realize that both the Buddha and Mahavira were something far greater than teachers or prophets in the minds of their adherents. They were thought to be
greater than any or all of the gods
.
I found this concept as dizzying as it is appalling. Although ordinary Buddhists and Jains continue to pray to Varuna and Mithra and the other Vedic gods, they regard all these gods as
inferior
to the twenty-fourth enlightened one and the twenty-fourth maker of river-crossings on the ground that no god can achieve nirvana or kevala without being reborn as a man. I shall repeat that, Democritus. No god can become enlightened and achieve extinction without first being reborn as a man.

It is astonishing to think that millions of people in my time—now, too, I suppose—actually thought that at a given moment in history two human beings had evolved to a higher state than that of all the gods that ever were or ever will be. This is titanism, as the Greeks would say. This is madness.

While I was in Vaishali, I got the sense that although the republics expected an attack from Magadha, they were having some difficulty in raising troops. This always happens in countries where every man of property thinks himself a king. You cannot fight a war with ten thousand generals. Despite those unrelenting tributes to the wisdom of the people one must endure hereabouts, any fool knows that the people are not only easily manipulated by demagogues but susceptible to bribery. Worse, the people are seldom eager to submit to the sort of discipline without which no war can be prosecuted, much less won. I predict a return of the tyrants to Athens. Democritus disagrees.

It was dawn when we arrived at the north bank of the Ravati River. Shravasti is on the south bank. Since the slow, thick, heat-narrowed river makes a wide curve at that particular point, Shravasti is crescent-shaped. On the land side, it is surrounded by high brick walls and formidable watchtowers. On the river side, there are all sorts of wharves and docks and warehouses—the usual jumble of an Indian river port. A flimsy wooden palisade separates the port from the city proper; obviously the inhabitants do not fear an attack from the river. In a country without bridges and warships, water is the perfect defense. I was pleased to note that the Great King could seize Shravasti in a day. I was equally pleased to note that in the early morning light, the high towers of Shravasti appeared to be made of roses.

Since the caravan was continuing north to Taxila, there was no reason for it to cross the river. So I said farewell to all the embassy except my personal guards and the invaluable Caraka.

As we were ferried across the river I began to comprehend, somewhat, all those Buddhist and Jaina references to rivers and ferryboats, to crossings and the farther shore. In fact, halfway across the river, when I saw how rapidly the caravan on the north shore had begun to shrink while, simultaneously, the walls and towers and temples of the city were expanding, I was reminded vividly of Prince Jeta’s image. In fact, approaching the residence of the golden one himself, I found myself
experiencing
,
as it were, the image. The shore that I had left was familiar, ordinary life. The river was the torrent of existence in which one might easily drown. Before me was not so much the city of Shravasti as what the Buddhists refer to as “the farther shore from birth and death.”

My arrival at Shravasti had been anticipated, and I was met at the dock by a glittering delegation. Prince Jeta himself introduced me to the governor of the city and his suite. These worthies tend to be somewhat fairer of skin and hair than their Magadhan equivalents. They also have about them an air of self-confidence that one seldom encounters at the Magadhan court But then, King Pasenadi had no pretensions to universal monarchhood; also, he had no chamberlain like Varshakara, whose secret police and sudden arrests made for a constant tension. Whatever Koshala’s misfortunes as a state, life was obviously quite pleasant for those able to live in comfort at Shravasti, that most opulent and luxurious of this world’s cities.

“Honored guests usually come from the south and then we meet them at the gates, with a most attractive ceremony. But here at the river ...” The governor apologized for the large mob of dock workers, fishermen, boatmen. They shoved and jostled us, despite a contingent of city policemen who would push back the crowd, which
would then
push back the police. Although everyone was quite good-natured, it is always an alarming experience to find oneself drowning in the dark odorous flesh of an Indian crowd.

Suddenly the cordon of police broke and the pressure of the mob hurled us against the wooden stockade. Fortunately, my Persian guards saved us from being crushed to death. The Persians drew their swords. The crowd backed off. Then, in a loud voice, the governor gave orders for the gates to be opened. But the gates remained shut. We were now marooned between the suddenly predatory crowd and the wooden stockade.

“This is the way things are in Kashala,” said Prince Jeta, striking down a thief’s arm that had managed to insinuate itself between two Persian guards.

“Well, the people seem ... cheerful,” I said.

“Oh, they are remarkably cheerful.”

“And there are so many of them,” I added inanely.

“Oh, yes, fifty-seven thousand families live in Shravasti.”

Meanwhile the governor of the city was shouting orders at the top of his voice while pounding on the gates with his fists. After what seemed an entire cycle of Vedic creation, the wooden gates swung creakily open and just inside the stockade, I was relieved to see a line of troops, spears at the ready. The crowd fell back, and we entered Shravasti with more haste than dignity.

Horse-drawn chariots were waiting for us but I said that I preferred to walk, for “after three weeks in a bullock cart my legs are stiff.” And so at the head of a somewhat irritable procession. I walked the length of what luckily proved to be the shortest of the four straight avenues that converge on caravan square. Each of the three long avenues begins, respectively, at the southwest, southeast and south gates, and each represents the terminus or point of departure of a caravan route.

The vast wealth of Shravasti is due to geography—the city is at the crossroads not only for the caravans that go between east and west but for those that go from north to south. As a result, the city is dominated by wealthy magnates, which means that, practically speaking, the Brahmans and warriors take second and third place to the merchant class, an anomaly in the Vedic world that is much resented by the displaced or, rather, ignored ruling classes. In peacetime the king and the nobles and the Brahmans are entirely dependent upon the merchants, who are like merchants everywhere—interested in trade, money, peace. It is only in wartime that the ruling classes come into their own, obliging the merchants to take cover until the danger is past.